This next weekend marks my 1 year anniversary serving as a pastor at First A/G Marble Falls. What a ride! It’s been a great time with great people. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, but God has been faithful and good to us here. If I had to sum up this year in one word, it would be “transition”.

The transition from living over a decade in one place to moving over four hours away was difficult. My daughters had to adapt from having all of our family living with a mile or so, to not seeing them except on holidays. We transitioned from home schooling our children to sending them to public school (which has been great). We transitioned from living in a 2000 square foot home to a 1200 square foot home, which caused us to get rid of a lot of stuff and simplify our life.

In ministry we transitioned from working with youth to working with adults. It’s been great! We helped in establishing small groups and on the worship team. For seven months it seemed that we were right on track to establish the dream and plan that was set out before us. Then God spoke and just like that our senior pastor had to move on. So we transitioned into being whatever God needed us to be here.

Can I be honest? It’s been hard. There are a lot of things I have seen good and bad that have come about during this time of transition.

I watched the church as they missed their senior pastor. They were still hurting from the last senior pastors departure. It was a difficult time. However, the Lord guided us through by keeping us focused on what’s important…the mission. Pastor or no pastor, we must maintain the mission. God is going to hold us accountable regardless of whether we have pastors or not. So I watched as this church pressed in and unified itself to purchase 380 shoes to give away to children all across the community. I watched as the finances poured in. It was a marvelous thing. God answered by sending the largest attending crowd ever to our church and the largest altar call ever as well!

Now it’s time for another transition. Next weekend our new senior pastor will preach our celebration service. We are celebrating God answering our prayers of sending us a new pastor and for sending us a harvest. We are celebrating the future or our church. We are celebrating new direction. We are celebrating new life. We are celebrating new leadership. There is hope in the air again and our church is showing signs of it.

So if you live around Marble Falls, Texas…come by and see us…God is doing something new here.